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Redmond, it would seem, is in for a rough ride with Windows 8, due to be officially announced at an event in New York on Thursday, October 25. The new version of the world's most popular OS has been commended for its clean design and innovative interface, but it may well leave users scratching their heads. The video above by video blogger and geek comedian Chris Pirillo is played for laughs, but he points to some glaring flaws in the new software's lack of intuitiveness.

Back in March, Pirillo did a video of his dad (obviously a tech-savvy guy with a multi-screen setup) trying to figure out how to use the consumer preview of Windows 8. "I might be here all day if I'm trying to figure this out," his dad says while trying to figure out how to exit Windows Explorer (the legacy interface leftover from Windows 7).

As I referenced back in June, UX expert Jared Spool, (the founder of User Interface Engineering) describes a design as intuitive when "the gap between a users’ actual knowledge about how to use a product, and the knowledge required to use it efficiently, is small or non-existent." Hence the problem with the elegance of the Windows 8 interface. If an average user (much less the sys admin in Perillo's video) can't figure out how to turn the computer off, that gap is too large!

Of course, companies need to innovate, and the mobile-inspired interface of Windows 8 represents a bold, new approach to the desktop. But the rigors of the Metro design philosophy have led Microsoft into the "Swiss trap." Swiss grid design, which I studied first-hand in college, is beautiful, elegant and restrained. But if you are not careful, it can be boring and unexpressive. Designers that have come out of the Swiss tradition have invariably figured out ways to put their own stamp on it and violate its pristine perfection to make more memorable and particular designs.

So this is to say that, perhaps, something like the "start" button should have been included in Windows 8 in a way that breaks the symmetry of all those perfectly aligned boxes. That something different would not only have grounded users of previous versions of Windows in an intuitive way, but it also would have provided memorable visual contrast.

But, on the positive side, innovation begets innovation. Pirillos latest Windows 8 video (at the top of the page) is sponsored by a company called Pokki that has created it's own mobile-inspired interface that runs on top of Windows XP, Vista, 7, and Windows 8. They even have a Mac OS version coming soon. Pokki creates a runtime within your desktop machine that supports popular mobile apps that can be downloaded for free from Pokki's desktop store. It must be said that at present, the store contains a narrow assortment of little more than a hundred apps, and more than half of them are games. They do have Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies, though.

Nothing is for nothing, of course, and Pokki's business model seems to rely on getting a cut of in-app purchases that "enable extra content in those apps." How integral that extra content is or how intrusive its promotion is varies with each app and is not managed by Pokki. Common sense would dictate that for the purchases to function as a revenue source they must interrupt the flow enough for users to be prompted to pay.

Along with the mobile app functionality, Pokki has included it's own version of the missing "start menu" in the form of the "Pokki menu," which restores the functionality that Windows users will find intuitive, including access to programs, control panels and shut down. What this software does to overall system performance probably varies from machine to machine based on processor speed and version of Windows, but it is a very innovative marketing strategy to use what many users will consider as a missing feature in Windows 8 as a hook for a revenue producing app platform.

One thing I do not completely understand is what Microsoft's policy is going to be towards third-party app stores since selling apps through its own Windows Store seems to be a key part of its revenue strategy going forward. There are beta versions of both Chrome and Firefox in the works, but it is unclear how apps for those browsers will work on Windows 8. One thing that is clear, is that Pokki is an alternate app store that will work on Windows 8 right out of the box. How Microsoft will respond if Pokki gains significant market share is anyone's guess.